If Steph brought me warm milk after I woke up from a nap, I’d slap myself twice to make sure I wasn’t in heaven. (Actually, if she also brought some Oreo cookies and a toast and jam, I’d be certain I was beyond the pearly gates.) So, why doesn’t Worm like his warm milk anymore?

That little baby is getting the King’s treatment from me. I bathe him when he starts to stick to the carpet, brush his teeth when his breath stinks, and change his diapers whenever they leak through. I even prepare a meal or two every single day for him. Yes! That means weekends, too! (With all this extra care, I’m probably going to be up for a dad-of-the-year award.) So, when he doesn’t appreciate the gratuitous milk-in-bed offering, it gets my goat.

Either way, the decreased daily intake of liquid in milk form must be compensated for or Worm will shrivel up. I brainstormed for the best way to add more fluids to Worm’s diet and came up with an ideal solution. Clearly, the best way to keep him hydrated would be IV drip. Hospitals use it all the time. Also, there’s no need for Worm to take time out from his busy play schedule in order to ingest fluids. (Can you say baby-multitasking?) He could have a hands-free hydrational experience 24 hours a day. As an added touch, wheels or a face could be added to the IV bag and it becomes a toy. (My mind never ceases to amaze me.)

Since no one wanted to support this exceptional idea for me financially (namely my wife), I’ve decided to go with the lame already-been-overdone sippy cup option. Multiple sippy cups filled with chocolate soy milk, juice, and water are strategically placed within arm’s reach of the Worm. He’s got access to a beverage bonanza. But he chooses not to indulge. He’s acquired a taste for something else.

Instead, Worm partakes of his bath water. Yep. Bath water. Not clean bath water, mind you. But soapy, sudsy, probably been peed in, bath water. He drank about 5 turtle cups of the cloudy stuff before he was satiated.

Maybe he thought it was pea soup, not pee soup. I don’t know. (Poor guy, I hate to tell him there’s a huge difference between pea and pee…)

Warning, Drinking Bath Water Makes You Shorter and More Troll-Like

He makes that face with every gulp…and yet he keeps drinking as if bath water will taste better the next time. (Isn’t that kind of like adults and beer? But, as we drink more beer it begins to taste like water. I’m not quite convinced the reciprocal effect is had when you start with water.)

At the very least, I should add some electrolytes to the bubbly baby soak. Oh wait, Worm already did. Eeew!